Radio taxi travel to become safer for women

 Women using a radio taxi service in the city can now feel safer while travelling.
These radio taxis will now have an additional safety feature that will send SMS alerts every few minutes about the location of the cab to a number provided by the woman passenger.

The radio taxis with the SMS-based ‘trip tracker service’ have been launched by Meru Cabs.
“Several women hire taxis to travel alone. Through this service, SMS alerts can be sent to an appointed person or family member of the woman traveller about the cab location and status of the journey,” a cab company executive said.

“The feature has been added to ensure a sense of safety for the traveller as well as the family,” he added.

According to the service providers, an option to provide a ‘tracking number’ - to which the SMS alerts will be sent - would be given to the customer, whenever a cab is booked.

The alternate number will be stored in the customer’s personal account and can be activated or deactivated anytime through the call center or website.

“On activating the trip tracker service, an SMS alert would be sent at the beginning of the trip and would include the customer’s name, trip start-time and the location from which the trip began,” an executive said.

“Messages would be sent every 15 minutes during the journey with details of the location of the cab,” the executive added.